Organisational culture and core values

The Faculty of Humanities has formulated a vision for Humanities culture, leadership and responsibility, in relation to Recognition and Rewards and the UU Leadership Profile.

In our faculty we strive for an organisational culture that can be described as follows:

• The university is an organisation of creative professionals. This requires a certain amount of room to manoeuvre and freedom for individual employees, an organisation that involves employees in what is going on, and transparent decision-making structures.
• The modern Dutch university is also an organisation that is under considerable pressure to perform. ‘Higher education for many’ must be realised with relatively limited financial resources. This requires a willingness on the part of employees to take responsibility for and ownership of the tasks entrusted to them, an attitude of commitment to their own team and to the organisation, and a flexible working attitude. This requires good and clear structures within the organisation, so that work can be done with minimum friction and maximum efficiency.
• At the same time, the existing work and performance pressure and the desire to be a diverse and inclusive organisation, require certain safeguards: respect for each other’s talents and time, and an organisation (and leadership) that offers safety and trust; that has an eye for the diversity, strengths, weaknesses and development opportunities of individual employees, and that facilitates their development.

Faculty core values

These considerations have resulted in the following faculty core values, which we will elaborate further in the following paragraphs by means of core competences:

• Professionalism
• Transparency
• Responsibility
• Connectedness
• Safety